(car engines roaring)
- The sound of an engine makes us excited
in the most primal way.
We step on the gas,
feel that engine roar
and our adrenaline just starts pumping
- Whoa whoa what are you doing man?
- What do you mean?
- What's up with your voice?
I always sound like this.
- No and it sounds low and weird.
Just be yourself
alright,
it's enough.
Alright we ready?
Rolling?
- Sound.
(chuckles)
What about a car makes it iconic?
Is it the body?
The engine?
The sound?
(car engine revving up)
(laughing)
- [video Audio] That was cool
- Well as technology advances,
cars are becoming more efficient in nearly every aspect
including sound.
(car accelerating)
Cars are quieter than ever before
because of reasons ranging
from government noise regulations
to turbo chargers
which can muffle engine noise
to increasingly insulated cabins.
But it's not what we
as car fans
are used to.
Drivers need dynamic feedback.
How do you give them that?
It's simple really,
artificial sounds.
Your phone clicks like a real camera
when it takes a picture,
right?
And your girlfriend laughs at your jokes that aren't funny.
It's pretty likely
that the sound of the engine
you hear from your driver's seat
is not the actual sound your engine is making.
It's enhanced.
It's a skeuomorph.
What's a skeuomorph?
Well it's a derivative object
that retains ornamental design attributes
from the structures that are inherent to the original
like linoleum tile
and that weird plastic that looks like leather.
That stuff freaks me out.
Audio skeuomorphism refers to
ornamental sounds that are relics of older technologies.
As we advance beyond older technologies like
film cameras and hard cover books,
transitioning to new tech can sometimes be jarring
and cars are no exception.
You car's blinker is an example of this.
The sound of the turning
hah, turd.
The sound of the turning signal
used to be caused by actual electrical contacts
and coil springs
inside of the dashboard.
But since cars have evolved
to not use those technologies anymore,
those sounds are simulated now.
(turning signal ticking)
Engine sound enhancement
has only become prevalent in the last ten years
but engineers have been tweaking your car's sounds
for a long time.
Around 2011,
BMW came out with a new gen M5.
They swapped out their naturally aspirated 5 liter V10
for a twin turbo charged V8.
Although the horse power went up,
the sound that many had known and come to love
went down.
The smaller engine and quieter cabin meant
that drivers couldn't hear that M5 roar
quite like they used to.
(engine roaring)
While less noise might sound like a good thing,
you don't buy an M5 to feel like you aren't driving an M5.
So BMW's solution to this new,
quieter cabin,
was to play an audio track of the engine
through the car's speakers.
(engine roaring)
The technology called Active Sound Design
is linked out to the M5's ECU
and accurately replicates the sound of the engine
over the full range of RPMs,
torque loads
and vehicle speeds.
So while it closely follows the engine levels,
it's still just an audio track
that plays through your speakers.
Volkswagen has their own methods
of beefing up engine sounds too.
(engine revving)
VW started using a device called a soundaktor,
German for sound actuator.
This hockey puck shaped speaker
is said to amplify real engine sounds from the car.
Others say that the noises are just pre-recorded
but Volkswagen adamantly denies these claims.
What are you hiding this time Volkswagen,
other than your emissions!?
Woo!
Some diesel that Volkswagen manufactures
have exhaust soundaktors that produce a low-end roar.
The sound actually comes from a speaker mounted
within the exhaust system
and is intended to make the diesel engine
sound more like a conventional gasoline engine.
Honestly with all the emission stuff
that came out about them,
I really don't know who to believe.
Truth is out there,
somewhere.
Ford has patented their own sound technology
dubbed the sound symposer.
This function works differently
than BMW or Volkswagen's systems.
When cruising the car is quiet
(engine revving)
But when the driver smashes on the gas,
(engine revving louder)
a resonator pipe
connecting the engine bay to the cabin
opens up,
amplifying natural engine sounds.
The best part about this system
is that it's customizable.
If you like the sound,
you can choose when the valve opens.
If you don't like how it sounds at all,
you can turn it off completely.
The Mustang eco boost however,
uses a different system to boost engine sound.
active noise control
is modeled after BMW's active sound design
and plays augmented engine noises
through the car's stereo speaker.
It also uses noise cancellation
which is a whole other beast.
Active noise cancellation employs the same physics
as your noise canceling headphones
you might have at home.
Small microphones record ambient noise from outside the car,
then replay the audio
but invert it so it cancels out the outside noise.
Um,
I'm not qualified to explain how that works
because I got my degree in television production
and not physics.
Much like a meal at a fancy restaurant,
presentation is muy importante
when it comes to selling cars.
The first impression is often the lasting-est
You can usually tell the quality of a car
before you even turn the engine on.
Obviously,
looks and styling are a big part of that
but a more subtle feature
you might not have been conscious about
was the car door.
(doors slamming)
You can tell a really nice car from a cheap car
by the sound of the door closing.
A satisfying deep thunk
(door thunking)
is preferable to a plasticy
(weird door slamming sound)
Engineers took note of this when new,
stricter safety regulations
were put in place to strengthen car doors.
Extra metal needed to be added to car doors
to bolster safety during crashes
and car manufacturers had to strip weight
from other parts of the door to balance it out.
The result changed the way the car doors sound
and ended up making them sound tinnier
From a sales standpoint,
the car door provides the first impression
of a car to a consumer.
If a potential buyer is walking around the showroom,
they open up the doors of many different cars
before they even have a chance to test drive.
So manufacturers can't have a rogue sound
messing up potential sales.
Engineers got to work redesigning the door sound.
Dampeners were used to counteract the tinny sound
and locks were tuned to provide the perfect
(door slamming)
Consumers got that satisfying
(door slamming)
but it's not always the sound that needs augmentation.
Sometimes the feel of shifting needs artificial help too.
Ever heard of a continuously variable transmission?
CVTs as they're often called,
are found on many, many vehicles nowadays.
They're different from a traditional transmission
because they seamlessly transition through gear ratios.
When using a traditional automatic transmission,
it is apparent when you shift gears
because you can feel it.
There's a drop in the RPM
and a jerk from the gear catching.
But it's different with a CVT.
There are no gears to shift to
so there is no delay or drop in RPM.
When CVTs or shiftless transmissions
first made it into production vehicles,
the feel of it was unsettling for some drivers.
The high and continuous rev
when accelerating gave drivers a motorboat feeling.
(motorboat engine)
So engineers programmed in fake gear changes
to appease people
that were used to conventional transmissions
even when it served no real purpose.
(car engine roaring)
When we think of loud engines,
electric vehicles don't usually come to mind.
EV's are usually silent or quietly whirring away
(electric car engine revving)
This is actually a problem
as EV's are sometimes too quiet to notice
when they're coming straight at you.
A study done by the University of California Riverside
found that their subjects had to be 74% closer
to hear an electric vehicle over a combustion engine
and another study done
by the Guide Dog's for the Blind Association
found that pedestrians were 40% more likely
to be hit by an electric or hybrid vehicle.
I read all the studies done by guide dogs.
They're great authors.
Both the U.S. and European union
have set mandatory guidelines
for sound produced by electric vehicles,
set to go in effect in 2019.
The guidelines state
that electric vehicles must produce
an audible sound when traveling under 19 miles per hour
to alert people in the car's vicinity.
At any speed over 19 miles an hour,
the wind and tires produce a sufficient amount of noise.
Law makers are thinking of allowing car makers
to let the driver choose between different car sounds
which will be either really awesome,
or just totally lame.
What if they charge you
for like a cooler sounding car?
Like your base model is like this little 'vroom'
but then like you pay like an extra $ 4 000
and it sounds like a
(loud, cool engine revving)
- There's fire in the system
- One car trying to purr a little more
is the brand new EV from Jaguar.
The I-pace is Jaguar's first electric vehicle
and boy howdy it's fast.
I'm talking 1.8 seconds from 0 to 60.
Woo!
Jaguar's new technology,
the acoustic vehicle alert system,
fits in
with the new guidelines imposed on electric vehicles.
It used to sound kind of like spaceship
(I-pace car engine revving)
but people kept looking up
so Jaguar had to redesign it totally.
Sound is an incredibly important part
of the driving experience.
It's the whole reason highschooler's put fart cans
on their car.
(trumpet)
It's fun to have something loud.
It's like the car is talking to you.
(car engine revving)
But how far will we let car companies go
pumping fake noise into our ears?
Maybe it's better not knowing it's fake
and living the rest of our days in ignorant bliss.
But if you're still watching this
then I guess,
too late for that.
Alright guys I'm walking around the office again.
You know what that means,
it's time for the sponsorship.
This week's episode of Wheelhouse is brought to you by
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You know what Squarespace is,
you've heard it allover.
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Ferrari dude.
Sweet.
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Guys I don't walk around the neighborhood
talking to my phone like a lunatic for nothing.
I do it because these sponsors help us make these shows
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use their stuff.
Alright, bye.
Thanks for watching Wheelhouse
we look at the weird stuff in the car world every week
so hit that yellow subscribe button right there.
If you like good sounding cars,
check out this episode of Up To Speed right here
and check out last week's episode of Wheelhouse right here.
Follow me on instagram @nolanjsyke
follow donut @donutmedia
Be nice,
I'll see you next time.